Chapters 3 and 4: Diversity is in the details

As Robert Maynard observed, conversations about diversity usually include race and gender, as well they should. But Fault Lines goes further -- to include not just race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, but also economic class, generation and geography.

For instance, Austin, Texas, is the seat of state government and also home to the University of Texas, with 48,000 students. Residents of the five-county Austin Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), population 1.5 million, are well-educated, and relatively well-off. U.S. Census Bureau figures show:

- 39 percent have bachelor’s degrees or higher compared with 27.2 percent for the U.S.
- Median household income is $50,484, compared with $46,242 for the United States.

But that’s not the complete picture.

The story above states that, for many, the storm was simply an inconvenience. But for individuals such as waitress Rita Rouhani, who drives to her job in downtown Austin from an adjacent county, for homebound senior citizens, for the working poor, and for the homeless, the impact of lost wages, missed meals, and inclement weather was or could be profound. The fact that the Meals on Wheels program delivers 2,100 meals daily is, in itself, telling.

By reporting the big freeze story using the class, generation and geography Fault Lines, the Austin American-Statesman recognized a key point that Robert C. Maynard made when he created the Fault Lines framework: coverage that helps us see ourselves and our communities “whole.”

Chapter 4: Postscript

A few months later, a group of 20 reporters and editors at the American-Statesman participated in a lunchtime workshop with Fault Lines trainer Lauraine Miller, who works with the Maynard Institute.

Toward the end of the session, Miller divided the group into teams to examine the impact of the Austin area’s explosive growth using the Fault Lines framework.

“This is my favorite part of a workshop,” Miller said. “The “Five Groups Exercise” energizes a training class, giving them a chance to frame stories in new ways that get the creative juices flowing, and also to have some fun.

“It also challenges them to apply Fault Lines to more than one platform—print, Web, audio and video, extending the reach of coverage.”

Metro Editor Gary Susswein later held a Fault Lines brainstorming session for the entire Metro desk, to polish the lens through which the staff is examining Austin growth.

“We split into groups and each group looked at an issue -- gentrification in Austin through the perspective of one of the Fault Lines,” Susswein said. “We've put together a list of possible story ideas that we hope to roll out in the coming weeks and months.”

Not only did the Fault Lines workshop group examine stories through the Fault Lines framework, but they also raised questions about using the tool for sensitive discussions among a diverse staff, posing this example:

After a Hispanic man drowned during a family picnic in Austin, a Statesman reporter was asked to “truth test” whether Hispanics are more likely to drown because, for cultural and financial reasons, they are less likely to know how to swim, Susswein said.

“Asking that question among colleagues in the newsroom, however, offended at least one person, and that reaction … kept (the reporter) from moving forward aggressively,” Susswein said.

“If she had known about Fault Lines, she could have stopped, taken a breath, and spoken with her colleague about this being an issue that different journalists will see and approach from different perspectives because of their own differing backgrounds.

“It could have been a tool for both sides to understand there was no offense intended; that there was simply a disconnect here that could be understood and overcome.”

Another workshop participant raised this point: Did the follow-up story idea confuse ethnicity and class?